Siemens today announced its deal to supply 56 wind turbines to an offshore wind power plant in the UK.
In addition to supplying six megawatt wind turbines, Siemens will be responsible for servicing the wind turbines for 15 years for the Galloper Wind Farm (GWFL) off the south-east coast of England. The total investment costs of the Galloper project are 1.5 billion British pounds.
RWE, UK Green Investment Bank, Macquarie Capital and Siemens Financial Services (SFS), each with a 25 percent stake, own the offshore wind power plant.
The plant’s 336 megawatt capacity will be sufficient to supply up to 336,000 British households with clean power.
So far, Siemens has already sold about 300 of its SWT-6.0-154 wind turbines to UK and German projects.
“We are working hard on making the cost of power from offshore wind power plants competitive with other ways of generating electricity,” said Michael Hannibal, CEO Offshore of the Wind Power and Renewables Division of Siemens.
Siemens will start installing the 56 SWT-6.0-154 wind turbines for the Galloper project in May 2017. The wind power plant will be fully operational by March 2018.
Siemens Financial Services contributed to securing the Siemens bid by providing 25 percent of the project equity, as well as supporting RWE with development funding in the period up to financial close.
The Galloper offshore wind power plant is to be erected around 27 kilometers off the coast of Suffolk. The wind turbines will be constructed on monopiles in water between 27 and 36 meters deep.
The Galloper project is an extension of the already on-line Greater Gabbard offshore wind farm, which has a capacity of 504 megawatts, where 140 Siemens wind turbines have been generating power for 530,000 British households since 2012.
Siemens employs about 2,000 people across various sites in Britain in the wind business, grid connections and wind service operations. The Galloper project is set to create around 700 jobs during construction and 90 jobs once operational in the UK.
Rajani Baburajan
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